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@ Fauntleroy Community Association: Food Fest on Tuesday; SDOT says no to RPZ change; other updates

The Fauntleroy Community Association‘s annual membership meeting – known as the Food Fest because of samples from local businesses – is Tuesday, and this week’s FCA board meeting brought lots of news ahead of it.

WHO’LL BE AT THE FOOD FEST: First, an update tonight from FCA president Mike Dey – Mayor Ed Murray and City Councilmember Lisa Herbold have confirmed they’ll attend. It starts at 6 pm Tuesday (March 21st) at The Hall at Fauntleroy (9131 California SW); free, but FCA invites members old and new to be ready to renew/join ($25/year).

DAYTIME RPZ REJECTED: Last fall, FCA asked SDOT to study parking in the existing Residential Parking Zone east of the Fauntleroy ferry terminal, where parking is currently restricted to permit holders between 2-5 am. The group’s concerns included Washington State Ferries employees parking in residential neighborhoods during the day and car-share vehicles. One week ago, SDOT replied to say its study found “not enough blocks meet the minimum threshold to make the requested changes to the existing RPZ.” Its letter said that they needed to find at least 10 blocks/20 blockfaces where parking was 75 percent occupied during their study; they found “approximately 6 blocks (7 blockfaces) that met the 75% threshold.”

SDOT also told FCA they had checked with WSDOT, which has 25 “business RPZ” permits for its employees to use, as “some need to park between 2 am and 5 am.” The state had rented 15 parking spaces at the Fauntleroy Schoolhouse but recently, according to SDOT’s letter, “decreased this to 5 spaces in part because the ferry employees were not using these spaces.”

As for car-sharing vehicles, SDOT’s letter notes that they “are permitted to park on street(s) throughout Seattle. There are no restrictions for free-floating car-sharing vehicles on residential streets.”

SDOT’s letter did offer the option of “adding parking on several of the blocks that have ‘No Parking’ on one side where the minimum width is sufficient,” saying it “often uses this strategy to add parking capacity to a neighborhood when it can be done safely to address resident concerns about lack of sufficient supply to meet current demand.”

FCA had done its own parking survey before requesting the changes and leaders say they want clarification of SDOT’s methodology and criteria, including the definition of what was referred to in the department’s letter as “a windshield survey.” Overall, the process, they said, has been frustrating, and they’re hoping to get a face-to-face discussion with SDOT.

ANOTHER PARKING ISSUE: FCA’s Gary Dawson, who is the area’s Ferry Advisory Committee rep and is also on the Triangle Improvement Task Force, said he’s trying to sleuth the status of a suggestion to expand the no-parking time period along Lincoln Park by an hour – 2 to 7 pm instead of the current 3 to 7 pm – to help with ferry waiting/traffic. He said it would be important to find out not only the status but also whether feedback had been sought from stakeholders such as Seattle Parks and neighbors.

Otherwise, the Triangle Task Force has one more scheduled meeting March 27th; here’s the WSF document on what they’re looking at so far for “quick wins.”

SPEAKING OF TRIANGLES: FCA’s Marty Westerman said the reconfigured Endolyne Triangle needs some tweaks, such as better identification of the loading zone, and that’s another issue they’d like to discuss face-to-face with SDOT. FCA’s Alexis Zolner provided an update on the plantings, saying some of the plants aren’t doing so well, but volunteers with gardening experience are working on that.

SPD UPDATE: Southwest Precinct Operations Lt. Ron Smith said SPD has done a speeding-emphasis patrol in the area and plans another one soon. The average northbound speeder on Fauntleroy was between 15 and 20 miles over the speed limit, he said – adding that many of those who were ticketed, as police say is often the case in emphasis patrols, were nearby residents, not people just passing through.

3 Replies to "@ Fauntleroy Community Association: Food Fest on Tuesday; SDOT says no to RPZ change; other updates"

I am glad the city has enough money to spare that a study on public street parking for view houses is a good use of it. The ferry RPZ has never been about exclusively about resident availability, most houses in the RPZ have multi car garages, its been about blocking access to people from outside the neighborhood, this was made apparent when the majority of complaints about the zip-line company at lincoln park centered around strangers parking and foot traffic.

This type of economic redlining of public resources should get more scrutiny and generally be looked down on these days.

At the end of the day the listed purpose of this RPZ study, was to validate the request to block ferry employees and car share cars from using public property.

Vincent: I disagree most strongly with your point of view. The majority of complaints about the zip line was not the traffic, it was concern over the trees and wildlife within the park and the fact that we’ve cultivated this park for a century and parks was going to hand over a part of it to a commercial enterprise. The issue around parking was not that strangers were coming in, but that the lots and streets are already jammed with cars on nice days and this would make that problem much much worse. RPZ is not an issue of economic redlining, this is an issue of quality of life for the neighborhood, for both residents and strangers. The state ferry has been providing parking at a nearby lot but workers choose to park closer to the ferry.

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